For Yuichi, however, Yukiho’s nose was her best part and the most deserving of a close-up shot. He steadied his grip on the camera and smiled.
Yuichi’s house was at the very end of a long line of terraced houses facing a narrow street. The place had been standing for thirty years already and an odd mix of miso soup, curry and other spices had infused the old roof and wall posts with their scent. Yuichi always thought of it as an embarrassingly working-class kind of smell.
‘Fumihiko’s upstairs,’ his mother called from the kitchen. He glanced down at the chopping board in front of her and sighed inwardly. Potato tempura again. Ever since one of her relatives back home had sent them potatoes they’d been eating them nearly every meal.
Upstairs he found his friend Fumihiko Kikuchi sitting in the middle of his bedroom, flipping through a movie pamphlet from a trip Yuichi had made to the cinema a few days earlier.
‘You saw Rocky, huh. Any good?’ Kikuchi asked, looking up at Yuichi. The pamphlet was open on a close-up of Sylvester Stallone’s face.
‘Yeah, it was cool.’
‘Cool. Everyone says it’s pretty good.’
Kikuchi resumed looking at the pamphlet. Yuichi figured he probably wanted it but didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to give the pamphlet to Kikuchi – if he wanted it, he could go and see the movie and get one himself.
‘I wish movies weren’t so expensive,’ his friend mumbled.
‘Yeah.’
Yuichi pulled his camera out of his duffel bag and put it on the desk, then sat down on his chair, hugging the back. Kikuchi was a good friend, but he didn’t like talking about money with him. Kikuchi lived alone with his mother, and you could tell just by looking at him that they had it pretty rough. Yuichi felt lucky that his dad was still healthy and working with the railroad company.
‘You taking pictures again?’ Kikuchi asked, looking at the camera. By his grin, it was clear he knew exactly what Yuichi’s subject had been.
‘Yeah,’ Yuichi said, grinning back.
‘Get any good ones?’
‘I hope so. Actually, I’m pretty sure I did, yeah.’
‘Big bucks,’ Kikuchi said with an arch of his eyebrows.
‘I don’t know. They don’t sell for that much. And it costs money to print them. I’ll be lucky if I come out ahead.’
‘Hey, man, cash is cash. You got yourself a marketable skill there. I’m jealous.’
‘I wouldn’t call it a skill, really. I don’t even know how to use the camera, at least not how you’re supposed to. All this stuff just fell into my lap.’
The room that Yuichi was now using as his own had previously belonged to his uncle, his father’s younger brother. His uncle was into photography, and as a result he owned a lot of cameras. He even had the equipment to develop and print black-and-white photos. When his uncle got married and left, he’d given some of his stuff to Yuichi.
‘Cool that you have someone who gives you things like that.’
Yuichi’s mood darkened as he anticipated more envy from Kikuchi. He didn’t know why Kikuchi always steered their conversation to money – except this time, Kikuchi changed the topic on his own.
‘Remember those photos your uncle took that you showed me the other day?’
‘The ones from around town?’
‘Yeah. You still got those?’
‘Sure.’
Yuichi reached for the album at the end of the bookshelf. This was another of the things his uncle had left. It had a few photographs inside, all of them black-and-white scenes taken on the streets near his house. He handed Kikuchi the album and Kikuchi began to pore over each photograph with great interest.
‘What are you so into those for?’ Yuichi said, looking down at his slightly chubby friend where he sat on the floor.
‘No reason, really,’ he said, pulling one of the photographs from the scrapbook. ‘Hey, think I can borrow this one?’
‘Which one’s that?’
Yuichi looked at the photograph in Kikuchi’s hand. There was a narrow street with a couple walking down it. A poster taped to an electrical pole hung loose in the wind, and there was a cat curled up on a plastic bucket in the foreground.
‘Whatcha want that for?’ Yuichi asked.
‘There’s a friend I want to show it to.’
‘Who?’
‘I’ll tell you once I show it to him.’
‘Why?’
‘Come on, let me borrow it. You’re not using it, are you?’
‘No, it’s cool, it’s just a little weird,’ Yuichi said, looking at his friend’s face as he handed him the photograph.
After dinner that night, Yuichi went up to his room and began developing the photographs he’d taken that afternoon. Using his closet as a darkroom, he could take the film out of the camera in there and place it in a special container so he could do the rest out in the light. Once the photos were fixed, he took the film out of the container and took it down to the sink on the first floor to wash it.
As he washed the film, Yuichi held it up to the fluorescent light over the sink. He smiled when he saw that the negative perfectly captured the sheen of Yukiho Karasawa’s hair. Good, he thought. This will make the customers happy.
Eriko Kawashima made a habit of writing in her diary each night before she went to bed. She’d started at the beginning of fifth grade, which meant she had been at it for a whole five years now. The trick to keeping a diary was not to pressure yourself into always being dramatic. Simple was OK. Even if all you wrote was ‘nothing much happened today’, that was fine.
But today she had lots to write about. For the first time she’d gone to Yukiho Karasawa’s house after school.
Eriko had known who she was since their first year in middle school. Yukiho had the face of an intellectual and an elegant, trim figure. Eriko saw something in her that she didn’t see in any of the other girls, or even in herself. What she felt when she looked at her was almost longing. She’d often wondered if there was some way they could be friends.
Which was why Eriko felt like celebrating when they were finally put in the same class in their third year of middle school. Mustering her courage, she had approached Yukiho right after the opening ceremony and introduced herself.
She’d been so afraid of a dirty look, or even worse, silence, that the girl’s reaction startled her.
Yukiho smiled. ‘Yukiho Karasawa,’ she said.
Yukiho was even more womanly close up. And she was sensitive. Just being with her opened Eriko’s eyes to all kinds of things she’d never noticed before. Yukiho had a natural talent for making conversations interesting, which made Eriko feel like she was more interesting, too. Though Eriko thought of herself as still a girl, in her mind and in numerous diary entries, Yukiho was always a ‘woman’.
As always with someone so popular, Eriko had competition for Yukiho’s friendship. At times she would feel a slight pang of jealousy, as though they might take something very important away from her.
Worst of all was when the boys at a nearby middle school noticed Yukiho and started following her around like she was some kind of celebrity. The other day during gym class some of the boys had climbed up the chain-link fence by the sports field to watch them. When they spotted Yukiho they hooted and hollered until the teacher made them leave.
And today, on their way home from school, there had been someone hiding in the back of a truck by the school gate taking pictures of her. Eriko had only caught a glimpse of him: an unhealthy-looking boy with a pimply face, the type of guy whose head was always filled with vulgar fantasies. When Eriko thought that the pictures he was taking of Yukiho might be fuelling those fantasies it made her want to puke, but Yukiho didn’t seem to pay any mind at all.